Goa Congress legislative party urge Rahul not to resign

In a joint resolution passed on Wednesday, the Goa Congress legislative party and the state Congress committee collectively urged party president Rahul Gandhi not to resign from his post, claiming Congress’ poor showing at the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls was a result of collective failure and should not be blamed on Gandhi’s leadership abilities alone.

Speaking to reporters at the state Congress headquarters in Panaji soon after a joint meeting of the CLP and the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee late on Wednesday, Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said that Congress workers in Goa would work towards rebuilding the party better if Gandhi was at the helm.

“In the resolution, we have said that the defeat in the Lok Sabha elections was due to a collective failure and not on account of lack of effort on our President Rahul Gandhi’s part,” Kavlekar said.

The Congress leader also said that a post-mortem should be conducted to identify the exact failures in the general elections and a course correction should be put in place and that the resignation of Gandhi would only prove to be another shock for the party.

“The post mortem will definitely happen. But he should take up the responsibility of the president and take the party forward and strengthen it, instead of resigning,” Kavlekar also said.

The party won one out of the two Lok Sabha seats in Goa but faced a drubbing at the national level during the general elections, in which the party had failed to secure a single seat in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, etc.

Following the massive defeat, Gandhi had offered his resignation, which was turned down by the Congress Working Committee.